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23.05.02
12 Deputy L.V. Feltham of the Minister for Treasury and Resources regarding the
implementation of the Integrated Technology Solution (OQ.83/2023)
Will the Minister provide an update on his assessment of the implementation of the Integrated Technology Solution, i.e. Connect, within his department?
Deputy I.J. Gorst (The Minister for Treasury and Resources):
The new system was implemented in January 2023. Connect is used by all departments across government and has been more than just a system implementation. It involves business change and adoption of standard processes across the organisation. With any change of this scale it was inevitable that issues would arise and indeed they have. They are being addressed. There is a process to raise any issues and high priority issues are being resolved quickly. The Government has replaced a 20 year-old unsupported financial system and today we are managing the Government’s finances on a more modern cloud-based system.
4.12.1 Deputy L.V. Feltham :
I thank the Minister for his answer and his assessment that there have been issues that have arisen. Could he inform the Assembly of some of those major issues and some of the risks that his department might be carrying as a consequence?
Deputy I.J. Gorst :
I have already said this in the public domain, they have been mostly around raising and paying of invoices. Some of those are the system issues, which are being resolved. Some of them are simply the processes that have built up over time across the organisation. Any new I.T. (information technology) system cannot be simply introduced and digitised previous processes. Process has to change, there has to be change management, and then the I.T. system can work. As I stand here today, I would suggest that most of the challenges we face are around system change that perhaps was not done in the way that we had either hoped or expected to be done.
Deputy L.V. Feltham :
Excuse me, Sir, I do not think my question was answered in relation to risks that might arise out of those issues.
Deputy I.J. Gorst :
Sorry, Sir, I would have thought that that was straightforward. There is a great risk that if invoices are not paid then services will not be delivered into the future. The opposite of that is, of course, that invoices could be paid where it should not have been raised. This is a process that has to be worked through when it comes to historic invoices and it has to be worked through carefully, mitigating those risks. The overwhelming message is that individuals from my department are going out right across departments to support those departments to make sure that they understand how to use the system appropriately and are using the system appropriately, therefore, in the best way possible, mitigating those risks.